


Silenced Whispers

by NoisyNoiverns



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2016-12-10
Packaged: 2018-09-07 14:34:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8804638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoisyNoiverns/pseuds/NoisyNoiverns
Summary: After years of horrors, the final stand against the Reapers can bring only peace.Alternate timeline wherein Saren and Nihlus both survive ME1.





	

**Author's Note:**

> from a tumblr prompt: "things you said when you were crying"

There was something in the air, a detached part of Nihlus’s mind commented as the world spun around him. Something ethereal, something other, something beyond.

A distant memory surged in his mind as Reaper troops fell to his rifle and familiar biotics rent the air above his head. Himself and Saren, fighting together as they did now, with other Spectre teams scattered across a massive battlefield, taking on a crime syndicate the Council wanted gone and the public would never hear about. _Right_ , he thought to himself. _This is how it feels to save the world_.

Shepard had started the run for the beam to the Citadel nearly an hour ago. Fifteen minutes ago, the Admiral Hackett human had given the order to begin escorting the Crucible in to dock at the station. Now they could only hold their ground and wait.

At some point in the fight, Saren had taken a hit to the neck and gone down, but as Nihlus had started to go to him, he’d sat up, put his hand against the wound, and stared at the blood that had come out. As Nihlus watched, he’d slowly put his talons against his face and painted on three stripes: one above each eye, and the third down his chin. Another smear of blood had gone over his crest, and where Saren had fallen, the ghost of Desolas Arterius had risen again.

The effect was downright eerie. Saren had been fidgeting before the battle began, saying he could feel the Reapers trying to get at him again. Nihlus had seen how it had impacted his ability to keep fighting- a stumble here, a missed opportunity there. But it was like the impromptu markings had given Saren renewed purpose, and as they waited for Shepard to save them all, he leaped and spun and fought like a man possessed, and in a way, Nihlus supposed he was. But the horde was closing in, and even Saren’s acrobatics weren’t slowing them down.

Nihlus thought that, if he had to die today, at least he got to see Saren at his full, terrifying strength one more time.

Suddenly, there was a great, deep  _crack_ , then a sound like air rushing to get out of the way. He felt something pass through him, and his plates locked, his mandibles dropped, he could only look on in horror as an odd wave of light swept through the ruined city.

It took him a moment to realize that, despite having stopped firing, he was not dead.

The Reapers were _leaving._

In the immediate foreground, husks were stopping their advance, looking at each other, setting upon each other like, well, mindless husks. Farther off, an unpleasant silhouette rose into the sky and meandered away.

And off to one side, he could just barely hear the gathering energy he knew too well.

He turned just in time for Saren to pop back out of the hole in spacetime biotic charge made for him, a wild look in his eyes and his mandibles spread in the biggest grin Nihlus had ever seen in his face. His cowl buzzed with a bombardment of subvocals- _excited_ and _relief_ and _ecstatic_ bordering on _giddy_. “They’re _gone!”_  he cried before Nihlus could even open his mouth. He reached out and clasped Nihlus’s shoulders, shaking him as he repeated, “They’re gone, they’re gone, it’s so quiet, they’re _gone!”_

Nihlus shook him off, but Saren didn’t notice, practically bouncing in his enthusiasm. Nihlus didn’t think he’d ever seen Saren like this, all wide eyes and flapping hands and toothy grin and long strings of blubbered peeps. He wasn’t clawing at his own hands, like he did when he was anxious. He wasn’t hunched over to hide from prying eyes, he wasn’t withdrawing into a hood, he was just…

Suddenly the way Saren’s subvocals were hitting his cowl clicked in Nihlus’s head. “Saren,” he said, reaching out to grasp Saren’s forearms, “are you crying?”

Saren froze for a moment, wide eyes now looking over Nihlus, judging his own safety. Then Nihlus found himself being caught up in a crushing hug, Saren’s head shoving up against his neck, and the high whine at the back of his vocal chords erupted in Nihlus’s cowl. “Nihlus,” Saren breathed, subvocals heavy with relief, “I’m _free.”_

Nihlus couldn’t help himself at that. He wrapped his arms around Saren and echoed his singing, sobbing subvocals, burying his head in Saren’s neck. That single word reverberated in his mind. Saren had been at the Reapers’ mercy for _years,_  only just recently given peace by the “Leviathans” Shepard had found, but now they were gone for good, and Saren was alone in his head for the first time in ages, and now-

“Marry me.”

The words bubbled out of his throat before he could think. Saren froze, and he quickly added, “Spirits, I’m sorry, it slipped out, I mean-”

A claw went up against his mouth, and he obligingly went quiet as Saren’s other hand moved up to cradle the back of his head. Saren’s hiccupped cries petered out as Nihlus stared into piercing blue eyes under hasty, bloody stripes. “Not right away,” Saren said, tilting his head slightly. “But after things are settled, I think.”

Twin beeps sounded as their comm units went off, and without saying a word, they removed each other’s headset and leaned in for a long kiss Nihlus would never admit he’d been waiting for for over a decade.


End file.
